The purpose of the pilot of the City of Kalisz is the implementation of the smart (sensored) bays in the City centre as an attempt to regulate and minimize cargo traffic and capture information about the real cargo flows. The solution aims to enable planning and booking of the reloading spaces by cargo vehicles. The planned reloading operation would allow the trucks to go directly to the booked place at the specific time, park and reload close to the designated place, reducing the city traffic.
The IoT system included sensors, communication devices and base stations. Additionally, a dedicated application was developed. Both the sensory network and the application were preliminarily tested, implemented, and tested again in the centre of the City of Kalisz.
The data collected from the system and two conducted surveys, pre- and post-pilot, provided information on truck traffic in the city centre. The main findings included:
- 40% of reloading operations were conducted within a very short time slot,
- frequent parking outside designated spaces and avoidance of parking fees were common.
In terms of the technical solution, the tested sensors haven’t met the test site requirements mainly because of heavy weather conditions and require improvement. Whereas, the application, communication, and base station tests were successful in confirming that the solution might be used in different cities.
Finally, the main recommendations identified included the introduction of the truck parking charging method towards subscription instead of fees and enabling of the reloading bays for temporary parking of private cars during night hours and at weekends.
Moreover, the other regulations supporting the scaling of smart bays would be an introduction of weight and/or size restrictions for delivery vehicles or the provision of inner-city micro-consolidation centres. Finally, environmental criteria in public delivery contracts might not be an appropriate policy measure. Once the city improves last-mile efficiency perception the environmental criteria in public delivery contracts might be revisited.